Iran and Syria events of the day... Iran reacts to alleged bombing of its Fordow nuclear facility by announcing a large increase of centrifuges at its Natanz facility.... Was the Syrian facility used to develop chemical / biological weapon and was that why it was hit by Israel ..... What does Iran / Syria do to reply to the attack by Israel ?

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/29/un-agency-dismisses-reports-explosion-at-iranian-nuclear-facility/

UN agency dismisses reports of explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility

Published January 29, 2013

Associated Press

VIENNA –  The U.N. nuclear agency is dismissing reports of a major explosion at Iran's fortified underground nuclear facility.

International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Iran's denial of "an incident" at the Fordo uranium enrichment plant is "consistent with our observations."

Some news organizations have cited Israeli intelligence reports of a blast at Fordo.

A diplomat familiar with the issue told AP that the IAEA's information came directly from IAEA inspectors at Fordo. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

Iran is enriching uranium at Fordo to a level that is just a technical step away from nuclear warhead material.

Tehran says it is enriching only for reactor fuel and for scientific purposes and denies accusations it wants nuclear arms.

http://beforeitsnews.com/iran/2013/01/panicked-iran-makes-power-move-after-nuke-site-loss-2436094.html

Bomb program stepped up at another facility to maintain posture with West

WND

byReza Kahlili

Two days after WND’s exclusive report on the devastating explosions at Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, Tehran informed the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog it was going to install thousands of modern centrifuges at another of its nuclear facilities in an apparent move to restore its bargaining position.

In a Jan. 23 letter to the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, Iran said it plans to install thousands of its upgraded centrifuges at the Natanz facility. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow today that Iran has every legal right under its obligations to the IAEA to enrich uranium, even with the more modern centrifuges.

Iranian media viewed Lavrov’s remarks as supportive of the decision. But the Russian minister also urged the Islamic regime to “freeze enrichment operations” during the negotiations with the 5-plus-1 countries, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

The White House this afternoon called Iran’s decision “provocative.”

Iran, whose economy has been battered by the international sanctions brought by its illicit nuclear program, apparently has lost much of its negotiating position since the incident at Fordow.

 MORE HERE

and.......

« Breaking News »

Iran to upgrade uranium equipment at Natanz – response to Fordo “sabotage” 
DEBKAfile January 31, 2013, 12:22 PM (GMT+02:00)

In a letter dated Jan. 23, Iran notified the UN nuclear agency that it intends to install new IR2m centrifuges at the Natanz plant to upgrade uranium enrichment from five to 20 percent. This would make it possible to  refine uranium faster that it can at the moment. DEBKAfile: This is Tehran’s defiant answer to the rumors that the main high-grade uranium enrichment facility at Fordo was sabotaged. The UN agency backed up Iran’s denial of this report, which means that Iran is now producing near-weapons grade uranium at two plants and and doubling its momentum toward a stock of weapons-grade material.

« Breaking News »

Witnesses: Bombed Jamaraya institute developed Syrian unconventional arms 
DEBKAfile January 30, 2013, 11:07 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Syrian government stated Wednesday night, Jan. 30 that the Israeli Air Force planes had struck an arms depot at Jamaraya near Damascus leaving dead and wounded and damaging military vehicles. There was no Israeli air strike on a Hizballah arms convoy, said the statement from Damascus in response to earlier reports that Israeli air sorties Wednesday had destroyed Hizballah missile and arms convoys ready to cross fro Syria into Lebanon. There has been no comment from Israel.  Witnesses living nearby reported to AFP that the Jamaraya institute was used for developing unconventional weapons.

http://www.debka.com/article/22724/Russia-slams-Israeli-attack-on-Syria-US-forces-in-Jordan-on-alert

Russia slams Israeli attack on Syria. US forces in Jordan on alert

DEBKAfile Special Report January 31, 2013, 9:51 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  Israeli Air Force   Syria   Russia   Middle East war buildup   US 

Israeli Air Force F-15 Eagle takes off

The Syrian announcement of an Israeli air strike on a military site near Damascus Wednesday, Jan. 30, drew strong condemnation from Moscow the next day: “Such action if confirmed would amount to unacceptable military interference in the war-ravaged country,” said the statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry Thursday. “If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violate the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it.”
Israel has made no comment on the Damascus statement which described in detail an Israeli air strike against a “military research institute” near the capital. Witnesses say it was a plant for manufacturing “unconventional weapons.” The facility was destroyed and two staff members killed.

Lebanese sources later reported a Russian Mig-31 fighter had crossed over Sinai Wednesday in the direction of Israel. It veered west over the Mediterranean after encountering an Israeli warning not to intrude into its air space and continued flying over Lebanon.

DEBKAfile’s military sources say that the only external military force in the eastern Mediterranean region is a fleet of 18 Russian warships, which includes landing-craft – among the largest in the Russian Navy – with 2,000 marines aboard.
According to various Middle East sources, the Syrian report of an Israeli air strike has touched off high military alerts across the region. Syria has put its Golan forces on the Israel border on combat readiness and the Lebanese and Jordanian armies are on alert. So too are the Russian fleet opposite Syria and the Lebanese army.

Our military sources report that Turkish units on the Syrian border are on high preparedness although Ankara played down the reports of the Israeli air strike in Syria, uncomfortable over the fact that the Israeli Air Force was the first external power to intervene directly in the Syrian conflict. 

So too are the US air force units stationed at the Turkish Incerlik air base, the US special forces deployed at the Jordanian Mafraq air facility and the American, German and Dutch Patriot missile interceptors deployed in Turkey opposite Syria. Israel has been on high alert since last week.
The prevailing estimate in military and intelligence circles in Washington and NATO capitals is that the Israeli air attack on the Syrian military site near Damascus was but the opening shot for the coming round of military blows they expect to be exchanged in the near future between Israel, Syria and Hizballah, with Iran possibly waiting in the wings for a chance to pitch in.

http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/damascus-countdown-iran-syria-vow-retaliation-after-israeli-airstrike-is-something-more-catastrophic-coming/

Damascus countdown: Iran & Syria vow retaliation after Israeli airstrike. Is something more catastrophic coming?

In Uncategorized on January 31, 2013 at 2:39 pm

Map locating the Syrian town Jamraya which was hit by an Israeli air strike on Wednesday. (Reuters graphic)

What will be next?

As the implosion of Syria continues unabated, Israeli officials are increasingly worried that weapons of mass destruction positioned on Syrian soil will be used against the Jewish state. Or that they will fall into the hands of anti-Israeli forces. Or be handed over to anti-Israeli forces. Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF top brass are also deeply concerned about Iran’s efforts to use the chaos in Syria to divert international attention away from stopping Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. As I’ve written before on this blog — and explore in more detail in my forthcoming geopolitical thriller, Damascus Countdown — the corridor between Tel Aviv, Damascus and Tehran is the most dangerous corridor on the planet at the moment. Iran is getting closer to building The Persian Bomb. More than 40,000 people have been slaughtered inside Syria. The world is not taking decisive action to stop any of this. And there is a growing fear in the region that a countdown may have begun to something even more catastrophic happening in the not-too-distant future. I pray that it doesn’t. But governments are increasingly on edge, and for good reason.

Here’s a snapshot of the latest developments in the last 48 hours:

“Israel bombed a suspected shipment of antiaircraft missiles in Syria on Wednesday, according to regional and U.S. officials, in its most ambitious strike inside its neighbor’s territory in nearly two chaotic years of civil war there,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “The early-morning strike in a border area west of Damascus targeted a convoy of trucks carrying Russian-made SA-17 missiles to Hezbollah, the anti-Israel Shiite militant and political group in Lebanon, according to a Western official briefed on the raid.”

“Syria maintained that the accounts of a strike on an arms convoy near the country’s border with Lebanon were wrong. Instead, Syria’s military said, Israeli jets had attacked a military facility near Damascus,” the Journal reports. “‘Israeli warplanes violated our airspace at dawn today and directly struck one of the scientific research centers responsible for elevating resistance and self-defense capabilities in the area of Jamraya in the Damascus countryside,’ Syria’s military said in a statement carried by the official Sana news agency. The attack killed two workers and injured five others, it said, and ’caused significant material damage and the destruction of the complex’ and an adjacent parking lot. Syrian activists say the Jamraya site is in a mountainous area of military facilities and training camps located on a heavily guarded road just off the main Damascus-Beirut highway. Later Wednesday, a U.S. official said the accounts of two targets—a convoy of weapons, and a military site—weren’t mutually exclusive. The U.S. believes Israeli warplanes bombed a Hezbollah-bound convoy of antiaircraft missiles, U.S. officials said. The vehicles may have been close to a military facility, they said, cautioning their information remained incomplete.”

Meanwhile, “Iran threatened that a reported Israeli strike in Syria would have ‘grave consequences for Tel Aviv’ on Thursday, days after saying that an attack on Syria would be seen as an attack on Iran,” reports the Times of Israel. “Syria added that the attacks ‘would not go unanswered.’”

“All options for a response against Israeli aggression are open,” an official close to the Assad regime said, according to Syrian press reports. ”The Zionists are trying to use the situations in Syria to restart the crisis when the government was managing to work toward a diplomatic solution.”

“Angry statements from Russia, Iran and the militantly anti-Israel group Hezbollah underscored the risk that Israel’s action —  which analysts and Western officials described as an attempt to stop the transfer of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah outposts in Lebanon —  could hasten the spillover of the civil war in Syria into a wider conflict,” reports the Washington Post.

“Russia said on Thursday it was very concerned about reports of an Israeli attack in Syria and that any such action, if confirmed, would amount to unacceptable military interference in the war-ravaged country,” reports Ynet News. “‘If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it,’ the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.”